Up the Ante

Seraphim ported in from the netsquare reroute in rings of gold with pixels of other shimmering colors mixed in. "Huh, it's this place again..- wait a second. This place looks like it's a bit off. It feels... more dangerous. It must be the lower levels. Where all the criminal scum and more powerful viruses are lurking, no doubt. This is probably one of the deeper dungeons we've been in, Erin."

"Right, that's Netvegas. Even I can recognize it. You're a minor, Erin. You reaaally shouldn't be delving into there. Is this what you meant? Gambling on the net for cash?" Jamie rolled her eyes as she stood over Erin's shoulder, hands on hips.

"No, just wait and watch. I can handle myself. I'm not a little kid. Nor do I behave as one like you are." Erin threw a casual insult out to aggravate with a smirk. Seraphim couldn't hear her at the moment until she hit the voice button. Although his volume seemed somewhat low for some reason.

"Well, Seraphim, we need to test our skills to the limit and get some cash to upgrade you to the limit." She let her finger off the voice key. "And I'm not using my parent's money to upgrade Seraphim. It's only mine. So don't give me that look."

"What look?" Jamie said, feeling like this was going nowhere, fast.

[Battle 1?]
After a bit of traveling, Seraphim found himself smack in the middle of a strange place. A mound of candy, piled sky-high, formed a mountain of multicolored fructose and diabetes. Before he could inspect anything further, four candy monsters emerged from the depths of ruinous plaque, and challenged the main character to a normal battle.

Bag O' Candy2A: 200HP (60°)
Bag O' Candy2B: 200HP (45°)
Bag O' Candy2C: 200HP (10°)
Bag O' Candy2D: 200HP (10°)

Terrain: 100% Candy Mountain (Treat as Snow, except not cold)
Steepness: 10% 0 degrees, 30% 10 degrees, 40% 45 degrees, 10% 60 degrees, 10% 90 degrees

Seraphim.EXE: 200HP (0°)
Lucifer.SP: 40HP (0°)

-ROGUE BATTLE ONE, FIGHT!!-
Seraphim noticed part of his jacket was on the ground and frowned, slipping it on first thing before looking about the saccharine landscape. "This... would probably kill Hansel and Gretel before they even knew the witch was there." He dryly commented as his defenses deployed and he felt his senses heighten. Jets on his boots allowed him to float slightly above the sugary mass, although whenever he stood still for more than a second, the smell of the burnt sugar becoming caramelized made him slightly nauseous.

"...Well, I guess I could just change this entire place to a more normalized terrain, but would that really help out?" Seraphim asked, looking at the entire mountain with a slightly sick feeling in his stomach. This place was a monstrosity made to fulfill some sick dream of gorging oneself on tons and tons of candy. "The monsters here probably created this place, and it grew and festered from there. I'll take out these spawn here. Once I'm done with that, I'll move on. There's probably a quest linked to this area but I haven't found it yet."

"So he just battles monsters in a magical candy land and you get cash for that? Something is fishy, if you can't smell it. And it isn't yesterday's steak." Jamie grimaced, convinced that Erin was being taken for a ride, as a swindler would put it.

"He gets it from the viruses, their junk data becomes zenny or something. I don't know all those technical details. It works and I get zenny and there's no catch." Erin pressed the voice button. "Alright, Seraphim. Let's take these things out carefully. We haven't really fought that much down here, so we want to use some strategy. Plus, I don't think we've ever seen any monster like these things before."

"Right. They look like candy though. Are you sure this isn't some sort of halloween event gone horribly wrong?" Seraphim questioned, raising an eyebrow at his second guess as to the events that happened to make this area the cesspool of pure sugar and waxed paper wrappers.

Erin couldn't resist a small chuckle at that before trying to figure out a proper method to take these things down.

"A good idea would be to use their own strength against them. Let's see if they can take being pelted with chocolate boulders and candy apple maces and what-not. As silly as that sounds, it'll probably damage the viruses and disorient them enough so that you can have a clear shot. After all, its status effect is clear that it only functions on enemies." Erin finished her plan and let go of the button, looking at Jamie, whose expression was one of exasperation.

"How is that even supposed to work?" She complained, "Those should-" Jamie sighed and stopped trying, just waiting for the outcome of the battle.

"Alright then, summoning the winds. " Seraphim spoke as he flung out what looked like circular objects, which began to spin in a non-existent wind in place as they hovered, creating gale-force conditions that didn't exist for the heroic navi. He walked forward, the winds never harming or even touching him. They just weren't tuned to his frequency, it was as if he was on a whole different television channel.

He drew his oversized blade from his inventory, pointing at a foe as the blade established a connection between him and the enemy in his targeting system. Then the electric tendrils snaked across the invisible line between him and his foe, seeking out the target he had indicated. It would drag it to him straight through the candy being thrown at it by the wind summons. "Get over here, you stale halloween candy. You need to be recycled." Seraphim's lame one-liner was followed up by a massive swing of his blade as the electric attack was followed up by an overhead bash with jets in the oversized blade propelling the weapon to huge speeds.

"Who's next?" Seraphim grinned as he taunted.

1] Junction with SP
2] Wind [Wind Effect + To all (Enemies)]
3] Wind [Wind Effect + To all (Enemies)]
*] Use tac movement to spot and target Bag O' candy2C [Move+2]
4] Magbolt [90+Stun+Magnetic Pull, Elec] [+10] [Weapon Junction] [Bag O' candy2C]
5] Sunder [125+Impact+Break+Slashing+Buster Charge] [Nerf: Slow][Bag O' candy2C]
*] Watch for the bag o' candy2 methods of attack. [Move+2]
*] Move out of the way if possible. [Mobility Junction]
6] Prepped Dodge
*] Prepped Dodge [Mobility Junction]

Passives:
Haste: Haste
Bracers of Armor: 20 HP Barrier
Rune Shroud: 40 HP Casing
Auto-Cure: Status Cure
With the summoning of the Windboxes, Seraphim started off the battle quite well, catching the candy monsters off guard. The mountain on which they were stationed on seemed to work against them in the torrent of winds, sending all but one of the monsters to the highest point of the mountain. Even that was only caused by Seraphim's magnetically charged Bigass Blade(tm), and it was soon dead after a powerful cleave of the sharp sword. The winds were quite useful, as all the candy monsters' hurled balls of death candy were rendered completely useless.

Bag O' Candy2A: 200HP (60°)
Bag O' Candy2B: 200HP (60°)
Bag O' Candy2C: DELETED
Bag O' Candy2D: 200HP (60°)

WindA: 100HP (2 Turns Left) (10°) (Snow - Increased Power)
WindB: 100HP (2 Turns Left) (10°) (Snow - Increased Power)

Terrain: 100% Candy Mountain (Treat as Snow, except not cold)
Steepness: 10% 0 degrees, 30% 10 degrees, 40% 45 degrees, 10% 60 degrees, 10% 90 degrees

Seraphim.EXE: 200HP (0°)
Lucifer.SP: 40HP (0°) (W/M Junction)
"Alright, this should be much easier now. Just lay down a spread of fire on them and they'll be fresh out of luck. Though to be honest, this was a quick and easy rendition of our usual battles. There was plenty terrain we could manipulate, similar to our battle in that tournament. This should be simple to end, just pummel them with enough damage and they'll go down. You should be fairly safe to their attacks, but I'd advise moving around enough to make you a hard target from those projectiles." Erin spoke, letting Jamie stand there as she continued her speech to Seraphim for a bit longer before cutting off and letting her speak.

"So how does this work? Does he like, kill them and get cash from them? Are you sure this isn't some sort of scam? Because that's how it looks like to me. There's no way you could get real life cash from this. Maybe virtual cash for some sort of video game currency to upgrade him, but that would be more like one of those nerdy games where you play with other people and pay a monthly fee."

"Nope, it all uh-comes down to their residual data. It's basically zenny." Erin repeated herself earnestly with a hint of snideness in her voice as she slid in the chips she thought would work best. After that, she got to have a staring contest with Jamie's skeptical gaze. She won, of course. Long hours staring at the PET screen had given her an edge noone could best her in.

Seraphim, on the other hand, was being his usual self. Successfully pushing the monsters up there and confusing them greatly in addition to disabling most of their 'functions' was encouraging as an accomplishment now just to take them out while they futilely threw objects at him.

"Alright, first let's hit them with some group attacks, then after that take them out individually. As this candy terrain seems unusually similar to 'snow', it should be functionally alike. Developers are usually lazy and just do a pallette switch with minor changes if they can cut corners and slash or get away without anyone noticing. That means electricity won't be as effective as usual on it." The navi fired once, then clicked the cocking mechanism, aiming carefully before firing again.

"Next, let's use some powerful single-target shots to take the remainder of their HP out as we don't want to run out of MP." Seraphim muttered to himself, raising up the weapon and firing some more mundane attacks in order to end the fight. (And hopefully end this debate between Erin and that NPC.)

1] Spreader [60+Spread8 @ Bag A, B, D]
2] Phoenixshot [70 Fire wide attack @ Bag A, B, D]
*] Use tac movement to aim better at Bag A [Move+2]
3] Markcannon [70+Lockon] [Bag A]
*] Use tac movement to shift aim to B [Mobility Junction]
4] Markcannon [70+Lockon] [Bag B]
*] Shift aim once more to Bag D [Move+2]
*] Move out of the way if possible. [Mobility Junction]
5] Fire Icewave2 [100+Aqua+Piercing] [Bag D]
6] Prepped Dodge
*] Prepped Dodge [Mobility Junction]

Passives:
Haste: Haste
Bracers of Armor: 20 HP Barrier
Rune Shroud: 40 HP Casing
Auto-Cure: Status Cure
Bump
Burning some candy with a few good shots was no challenge for Seraphim, as the candy monsters were all eliminated with all due haste.

Bag O' Candy2A: DELETED
Bag O' Candy2B: DELETED
Bag O' Candy2C: DELETED
Bag O' Candy2D: DELETED

WindA: 100HP (2 Turns Left) (10°) (Snow - Increased Power)
WindB: 100HP (2 Turns Left) (10°) (Snow - Increased Power)

Terrain: 100% Candy Mountain (Treat as Snow, except not cold)
Steepness: 10% 0 degrees, 30% 10 degrees, 40% 45 degrees, 10% 60 degrees, 10% 90 degrees

Seraphim.EXE: 200HP (0°)
Lucifer.SP: 40HP (0°) (W/M Junction)

-ROGUE BATTLE ONE, VICTORY!!-

Rewards: 2000z, 40 Bugfrags
"Well I'll be damned. It actually does make you cash. Twenty bucks for five minutes? Why does anyone have a job anymore?" Jamie asked, her mouth slightly open with astonishment.

"No clue." Erin answered, directing Seraphim onward.


[Battle 2]
As Seraphim went further into the networks, he realized that he was walking on a very slight incline, and by a trick of the terrain, didn't see that he was heading straight for a cliff until he was at the very edge of it. Just as he was about to turn, a sight fixed him on the spot for a while. After a bit, he saw that it was a red Fishy, but there was something suspicious about it- a rider! Indeed, a steel ball-wielding Breaker was atop the soaring bird, heading straight for him!

Suddenly, a squeaky voice called him from behind. Turning around, he found that he was now also face-to-face with three large-hatted viruses with peculiarly huge and pointy sunglasses, his back to a rather unpleasant-looking cliff.

Breaker: 150HP [riding Fishy2]
Fishy2: 150HP [behind, approaching from Missing]
BigHat2A: 170HP [approaching from left]
BigHat2B: 170HP [approaching from center]
BigHat2C: 170HP [approaching from right]

Terrain:
40% Missing (After cliff edge)
60% Grass-Random

Seraphim.EXE: 200HP (Grass, edge of Missing)
Lucifer.SP: 40HP

-ROGUE BATTLE TWO, FIGHT!!-